Chandigarh
The Punjab and Haryana high court on Tuesday deferred the hearing on a suo motu plea in Punjab’s drugs menace for May 10. The HC also asked the state to file a status report on probe into allegations of cops involved in drug smuggling.
During the resumed hearing, intervener in the case, Navkiran Singh, had referred to his application filed earlier this year and had demanded that sealed cover reports submitted in the high court on role of cops be opened.
The government counsel had reiterated that the state does not have an objection to opening of the sealed cover reports.
The court, while deferring the hearing till May, asked the state to file a status report. The detailed order is awaited.
The reports are lying in a sealed cover since mid-2018. A set of reports were submitted by former DGP Siddharth Chattopadhyaya on February 1, 2018, March 15, 2018 and May 8, 2018. The reports, as per Navkiran Singh, contain outcome of inquiry conducted by the SIT led by him against the erring officials who allegedly acted in “connivance with” drug traffickers.
The second set of reports on the role of Akali leader, Bikram Singh Majithia, is also lying in a sealed cover in the high court. However, the then Congress government in December 2021 registered an FIR on the report filed by the Special Task Force (STF) led by Harpreet Singh Sidhu in 2018.
{{/usCountry}}The second set of reports on the role of Akali leader, Bikram Singh Majithia, is also lying in a sealed cover in the high court. However, the then Congress government in December 2021 registered an FIR on the report filed by the Special Task Force (STF) led by Harpreet Singh Sidhu in 2018.
{{/usCountry}}Majithia, who is behind bars, has been claiming that the government could not have acted on a sealed cover report.